The present invention relates to electronic circuits, and in particular, to charge pump circuits and methods.
Circuits require power to operation. In electronic circuits, voltage and current must be supplied to the circuits to allow the devices in the circuit to carry out their operations. In many contemporary circuits, multiple devices performing a wide variety of functions are fabricated on a single integrated circuit (“IC” or “chip”). Typical prior art approaches to powering an integrated circuit include providing a power line, Vdd, to the integrated circuit and operating all the circuits on the IC based on external power. However, many sub-circuits of an IC may have different voltage and current requirements that may not be met with a single power line. Traditionally, it has been problematic to perform voltage and current transformations on an IC because such transformations typically require large inductors that increase the space requirements of the IC.